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[0:01] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's theatre podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with stars, creators, and industry leaders on Broadway and beyond. I'm Gordon Cox.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to the writer Suzan-Lori Parks and the director Kenny Leon. Parks is the award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and playwright of shows including Venus in the Blood, The Death of the Last Black Man and the Whole Entire World, and of Topdog Underdog, the 2001 play that won her a Pulitzer Prize. She's currently collaborating with director Leon on a Broadway revival of Topdog Underdog, starring rising young actors Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Both Leon and Parks are in the midst of a busy season, with Parks simultaneously premiering a new play, Sally and Tom, now at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, plus two productions on the way at Off-Broadway's Public Theatre, including one in which she also stars.

Meanwhile, Leon, in addition to Topdog Underdog, is directing an upcoming fall revival of Adrian Kennedy's Ohio State Murders, and he's also joined the producing team of the new musical Some Like It Hot. Now, both artists are taking a moment out of their busy schedules to join me in the virtual studio to talk spiritual inspiration, making work that matters, and why Topdog Underdog makes Parks think of Doctor Strange. Hi, Suzan-Lori and Kenny, thanks for joining me.

[1:31] Suzan-Lori Parks: Hey, good to see you, Gordon. Happy to be here, man.

[1:39] Gordon Cox: So, Suzan-Lori, the last time you and I spoke, you told me about the genesis of Topdog Underdog, and I think it's a great story, so I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about how you first wrote the play, how the idea came to you, and what the writing process was like.

[1:55] Suzan-Lori Parks: Sure. I hope I'm consistent with what I said before. I didn't read my notes, but let's see. So, I was hanging out with a friend, and I said out loud, I know what my next play is going to be. Two brothers, Lincoln and Booth, ba-dum-bum. You know, like a comedic thing. And she said, you better go home and write. And I said, yeah, you think, okay. So, I went home, and I started writing, and it was the 6th of January. I remember that, because every year since then, I've celebrated Topdog Day. I started writing, it came very quickly, and by, that was a Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon, I had finished a pretty solid draft of the play.

[2:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, it seems like it came, this was 6th of January, 1999, is that right?

[2:51] Suzan-Lori Parks: That is correct. Yeah, and it seems like it came to you almost kind of divinely inspired, that it was kind of downloading into your head, is that right?

[2:57] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, for those of us who believe in the spirit, yes.

[3:06] Gordon Cox: And does that happen often? Is that the kind of thing where you are following, are you the kind of writer who hears voices and follows them, or hears ideas and sort of follows them, and they kind of appear fully formed to you?

[3:12] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, well, the spirit is always singing, and so, and I'm, you know, I'm always listening. I mean, sometimes I listen better than others, you know, but yes.

[3:24] Gordon Cox: And so, was there something, was it a similar process for something like your new play, the one you're working on right now in Minneapolis, Sally and Tom?

[3:33] Suzan-Lori Parks: No, see, that's the thing. Every project I work on and write comes in a different way, and it comes in the best way. It is, it's always in the best incarnation that it should be for the story, but the arrival is very different. So, I have to really be on my toes. That's why I have to listen all the time. I can't just cookie cutter my shit, you know what I'm saying? Although I loved cookies, but you know, it ain't like that. So, after Topdog came, I was, for like five minutes, I walked around going, yeah, I'm a three-day playwright. And then that bubble was very quickly burst when I sat down to write the next thing. So, you know.

[4:23] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. And Kenny, when did you first encounter Topdog Underdog? Do you remember when you first saw it or read it and what you thought of it?

[4:27] Kenny Leon: Wow. That's interesting because I didn't, I didn't see it on Broadway. So, I must have read it. And I know from the first encounter with it, I've always loved that play. I've always said like, okay, not that I don't respect everything that Suzan-Lori Parks does, but I was like, that's the one, that's the one, that's the one, that's the one, not as an artist, but that's the one as a black man in America that really just went to my core and it stayed to my core. But now, 20 years after she put pen to paper, it exceeds its brilliance. It exceeds what I thought it was or how great it was. And I jokingly, I mess with her in rehearsal. I jokingly, but seriously refer to her as the goat, the greatest of all time.

Because she is. And because I'm now convinced after working on this play and in this process with two great, great actors and having her in the space, I'm really now convinced that, you know, I don't know, I know none better. And it's because it feels universal. It feels spiritual. It feels connected to humanity in a way that other writers don't quite touch on for me. So, I know it sounds like I'm in the fan club, but this is new for me to feel this way, this strongly about a writer and a play. So, over the years, I've even, I had to see like regional theater productions of it. I produced a regional theater production that I did not direct. And I've always thought it was strong, a strong play.

But now, I'm just, it far exceeds what I thought before. And as a human being, as a person who loves theater and loves storytelling, I am profoundly moved and affected by it as a human being, especially given the last two or three years after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, COVID. I feel like this reminds me of what life is and the cycle of life and how long and deep it is and how we keep getting it wrong and getting it right. And, you know, what lessons do we learn? Have we learned? What lessons do we need to learn? So, I just thank Suzan-Lori Parks for just being open to the universe to put this down and giving me an opportunity to work on such a fascinating piece.

[7:34] Gordon Cox: This is the first time the two of you have worked together. Is that right?

[7:36] Suzan-Lori Parks: I know.

[7:39] Kenny Leon: And I'm mad about that now.

[7:40] Suzan-Lori Parks: I know, right? Right? No, it was not. It's like, come on.

[7:46] Kenny Leon: Everything in this time, you know, I think this is the right time for us to work together. But I'm like, I've really no bullshit. It's just like this is there's been a great experience and a great process. And I just I love this human being.

[7:54] Suzan-Lori Parks: And likewise.

[8:04] Kenny Leon: Yeah, that's that's it.

[8:06] Gordon Cox: And how did the production come together now? What was the impetus for doing it now?

[8:11] Kenny Leon: It had been rolling toward, you know, because these years that Walter Mosley says years that end in zero, you know, so it was like 10 past and we did a production over at Two River Theater in New Jersey and then 20s coming. And there were producers. I mean, this is how I know it came together. Producers, specifically David Stone, who's, you know, Mr. Fabulous and he's done awesome things like Wicked and a million other cool shows. And he was had been interested in it. And I was like, OK, so let's get Kenny. Right? Let's get Kenny. Let's get Kenny Leon. And yeah, I never worked with Kenny. But but come on, Kenny, we we had been to the same parties and we revolve. And well, you you're fabulous. But, you know, I've been to some parties that you've been to. So it was like, let's get Kenny. And we got Kenny. And then, you know, Kenny got the brothers.

[9:16] Kenny Leon: Yeah. Isn't that how it happened, Matt?

[9:20] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, I think we've been we've been dancing at the same parties and same panels and right in the same world. And yeah, and I remember when I said, well, no, David Stone called me and says, I need you and Suzan-Lori Parks to talk. You know, I said, OK. So I remember you were doing a film project and I was doing a film project. We're on the phone and we were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talked a little bit like, OK, go. Let's talk again. We talked again. And, you know, I think we both had a feeling that we really wanted to do this and we kind of moved pretty fast.

[9:55] Gordon Cox: And so you both mentioned the actors that you've got playing the two roles of Lincoln and Booth. Tell me about them. Suzan-Lori, for instance, I imagine you've seen a number of productions of Topdog Underdog. What do you feel like these two actors are bringing to the roles that maybe you've never seen before?

[10:06] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, that's a great question, man, because they bring. Specificity that I've never seen before, they bring a fearlessness, they're going to the place. Well, I mean, this is how I see it. You know, I'm I'm like sitting in the house watching them, but they're going to places that might frighten them. You know, we talked, I think one of the first days, Kenny, didn't we talk about like in all my plays, in all my works, there's a there's a invisible net made out of love. And if you leap, the net will catch you and sustain you. Then that's what I say. But then working with actors and stuff, you know, I mean, you know, you hope they believe you and they're going to places like shit. I'm going to this deep place past the place I thought was deep, you know, and they both do that in very different ways.

Yaya and Corey are just fearless. And they're also they they get the mission, which like we are together with Kenny and Corey and Yaya and Suzan-Lori Parks, we are training, we are becoming sacred agents, we are becoming sacred agents, agents of the sacred. And I and we all get it. We all get that.

[11:42] Gordon Cox: So yeah. And what about Kenny for you? What's it like working with those two? How would you characterize them?

[11:49] Kenny Leon: I've always thought that, you know, in all these years of doing many, many Broadway shows and regional theater shows, I always say that the right people find find the place. You know what I mean? I don't I don't really cast plays. They cast themselves, you know. And from the beginning, I've always wanted to work with Corey. I didn't know a lot about Yaya. I saw him in Chicago seven. I said, wow, he's he's brilliant. But these both of these guys had a passion to do the play, so they let it be known early in the process that they love the play and they were in.

[12:25] Kenny Leon: And we played around with three or four different people and ended up with these two brilliant guys. What I love about them, it's like, you know, all of us do a little bit of TV and a little bit of film and a lot of theater, and I just think that they're all different from each other, but theater is just really different. So we're taking advantage of the theater process because unlike film and television, we have rehearsal, we have collaboration, we have time to observe the world. We're trying to paint on the stage, and no one person has all of the answers sometimes. It's a writer's response, sometimes they need a director's response, and sometimes it's an actor's response. So we had that process where it's like they completely trust what's on the page.

They completely like, okay, we have to get the rhythm that Suzan-Lori Parks put on the page. We can't make it be our rhythm. Let's find why she put that rhythm there. Oh, well, we can't watch ourselves, so we need to really trust that Kenny has a good eye on what we're doing, you know? And there's a reason that he's been doing it for so long. And I have to trust that they bring their 35-year-old selves to this and they can teach us what's happening in the world with 35-year-olds as they confront humanity. So it's that perfect melding of process and the beauty of theater, and I think we all look at this as a sacred time, a special time. Who knows when either one of them will do their next play?

But I love the fact that, number one, they trust the writing; number two, they believe in me, and they believe in the nowness of this play, doing this play right now. And that's just equal success. You know, the play is an important play to do right now, and like Suzan-Lori Parks says, it's like the play is defined by who's in it, who's doing it. You know, no disrespect to anybody who's done it before, you know, and Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def and the Durden brothers and all the many hundreds of men that have done this play all over the world. The play catches all of them. The play is beautiful no matter who does it, but when you get guys like this who really complement each other, one actor is very, very physical, the other actor is very, very intellectually internal, and you put them together, and it's like, wow, they're really brothers, and they are really bringing all of themselves to this production. So it rings of authenticity.

[15:27] Suzan-Lori Parks: What is the world of the play for maybe people who haven't read it or seen it lately? Um, what, like Suzan-Lori, for you, how do you imagine how realistic is this play, and where does the world of this play exist for you? And has that changed over the years?

[15:43] Suzan-Lori Parks: You mean outside of the? Yeah. Well, as you were building the world of the play itself, these are people I knew. A lot of them are past, you know, uncles, cousins, brothers. These, you know, I mean, it's nobody I didn't like copy anybody's story or anything because I wrote it for all brothers. And then, by extension, because that's what a writer worth her salt or whatever the phrase is, a writer who knows her shit will do. She will write specifically, and the more specifically she writes them, the wider the arms, the wider the embrace, you know? So these are, but it comes just right out of love. That, and I think that's why it's so beautiful and so enduring. It comes out of the deep love I have for my people, human people, the desire that I, you know, in my one of my, you know, I serve the Most High Spirit.

So one of my jobs is to encourage people to wake up to the love, you know, and anyway, I can do that. So, yeah, so I don't know if I answered your question, but yeah, yeah, I know brothers like this. Yeah, I know all kinds of people, you know, and these are some people that I've been knowing over the last, you know, 50, 60 years of my life. I'm almost 60.

[17:33] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Suzan-Lori and Kenny right after the break.

[17:47] Gordon Cox: And now here's more with the writer Suzan-Lori Parks and director Kenny Leon. Kenny, for you, do you have a process for when you take on a new play in terms of figuring out what your angle is as a director and what the production is?

[18:01] Kenny Leon: On all of my plays, anything I work on, I try to disappear. Some people don't like that, but I like to disappear. It's like I want to be invisible, but I'm there in a strong way. So initially, I read a play, even if it's a play that's been around. I read it like five times, like back to back, as closely as I can read to it. Like, so in a day, I might read the play three times back to back, and then the next day read it twice. And then I take out a sheet of paper. I'm old school; I take out a piece of paper, and I'll write down what comes to my mind. What are the words? What are the metaphors that come to my mind? So when I did that with this particular play, you know, love, humanity, Cain and Abel, fable, Greek, Egypt, all those things come to mind.

And then I proceed from that piece of paper to my scenic design to say, okay, where does the play live? And so for this, I wanted to play. I feel like the play for me said it was a big, it's a big play dealing with an intimate subject matter. It's a big play. So I didn't, I know my approach means that, oh, it's not just a year old or 20 years old; it's like 500 years old, 600 years old. I had a friend today call me because he had went to Egypt and Israel, and he was telling me about his experience in Egypt for the first time and knowing how long Black people have been on the planet. And it's like, so that ties into the way I see this play because it's that big. It holds that, yes, an American Black man is at the center of it, but humanity is at the center of it, and the beginning of time is at the center of it.

So for me, the production was much longer, and it's much bigger, and it catches everybody. So like every play I do, that's my process. I've read it. I don't even try to put it in a place in a time. I say, what comes to mind? What are the words that come to mind? And then I look at it when I open the play. I said, do I still feel those words when people walk out the door? Do I feel love? Do I feel fear? All those things that talk about what do I want them to feel walking out the door? Do I want them to feel, I want them to be uplifted? I don't want them to be depressed. I want them to feel human. And I think we've sort of accomplished that.

[20:55] Gordon Cox: For you, Suzan-Lori, do you have a sense of where "Topdog/Underdog" sits in your body of work in terms of how it might have been the start of a new thread of writing for you or the capstone of a phase for you, or do you have a sense of what it means?

[21:17] Suzan-Lori Parks: She loves. Yeah, and they all because they all have a sort of like different superpowers. So "Topdog" it's like suddenly, like an arch appeared, like a portal. That's what it is. I love "Doctor Strange," you know, especially "Doctor Strange," the first "Doctor Strange." And you know when he, you know, he's making those, I wish you could see my camera; it doesn't work. Anyway, he's making those portals. Like that, "Topdog" opened a whole portal for me, and I stepped through it, and then I was on a totally different landscape where I was able to do all that time making those spells and charms in the off-off-Broadway theater. I was now ready to sing the song in a way that was even more powerful.

You know, and I'm not talking about audience size or anything; I'm talking about I can't describe it, but yeah, you know, suddenly the work could be heard in a different way. And I had been working on all the skills, and now, and since then, yeah, you could see it as, I mean, maybe 20 years ago, I was like, whoa, this is big. This is a lot. I'm on top of a mountain, and in the last 20 years, I feel as if I've climbed. It was only the beginning of something to which, and now even with like "Plays for the Plague Years" or "Sally and Tom" at the Guttery, it's a whole nother thing. So, I don't know if I answered your question. Blah blah, you can edit it.

[23:38] Gordon Cox: No, you did. That's great. And actually, that leads me into "Sally and Tom." Can you tell us a little bit about that play and, yeah, you're learning about the show as you're in, you just started performances right now, right?

[23:50] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, we're opening tonight. Yeah. You know, talk, you know, so there's Lincoln and Booth, the pair, the divine pair of, and then there's Sally and Thomas, another divine couple. I'm speaking metaphorically and mythologically, the opposites. And I'm just, you know, I'm talking about this like having written the play, you know, I'm saying I don't think like this when I'm writing the play. I'm like, what the fuck is the story? That's what I think. But anyway, so here they are, and it's not just about, it's not history porn. It's not like Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings or Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, right? It's called "Sally and Tom," her name's first. Yeah, it's not history porn, although people would like that. But it's about how the world is made. It's very much about how the world is made. It's about a group of people who are put on a play about.

[24:49] Suzan-Lori Parks: Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson, or the fact that Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson are allowing themselves to be subjects of a play put on by some people. And it's not just about race. I mean, things that people are like, oh, let's talk about race. Oh, and whatever. What else? What else we got? You know what I'm saying? Can we talk about humanity? I love it, Kenny. It's like, yeah, these works that we're doing are encouraging people to be human. Hello? And to continue to create civilization, which is one of the things I believe that we as artists can do. It's our superpower. And we toss it away to just be what they used to call glee men, you know, the ones who entertain only and feed each other sugar and buy shit that we don't need.

Instead of singing the great song. So anyway, oh, I'm on my soapbox. Yeah. And Kenny, you are going straight from Topdog/Underdog to Ohio State Murders, which is a play by Adrienne Kennedy that is having its Broadway debut finally. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that. And how does how I mean, you're in deep in Topdog/Underdog right now, but do you feel like that play Topdog is in conversation with Ohio State Murders at all?

[26:15] Kenny Leon: A hundred percent. You know, I used to I mean, I ran a big theater and I ran a small theater as artistic director. And I've always I was always interested in how plays talk to each other in a given season. So for me personally, you know, I'm not trying to force shows out of my head. I'm trying to invite them in. So I've been like I've been listening to Topdog talk to Ohio State Murders for about a year now. And they're there and in deep conversation and it impacts each other. And the music is different, but there's similarities between life and death in both of them. They are both written by two women. So it's like how I interface with the women artists in my life. I'm excited to work with Arja MacDonald on that project.

It's so yeah, they talk to each other. They don't get in each other's way. I don't fight my own mind. I am, I invite it in. It's like, okay, keep talking. I'm going to listen. It's like SLP says you gotta listen. So I've been listening for a long time and I'm excited to start that in about 10 days. And it is also the Broadway debut of Adrienne Kennedy, who is one of those like hugely influential playwrights who has not been on Broadway until now. Can you talk a little bit about why the importance of that?

[27:48] Suzan-Lori Parks: Go ahead. Yeah, what I love about that, I read a lot of Adrienne Kennedy in college. And I guess because of the subject matter of her plays, they were rich and deep and dealing with death and pain. And I guess some people said those weren't commercial ideas. What I love about her and what I love about Susan Lori Parks, they just wrote the shit. They just wrote this stuff. They just like, we're just writing truth. And not every play needs to be on Broadway or should be on Broadway. And it's not any hierarchical thing like that. But for her, since she was 15, she always wanted to have her play on the Broadway stage. And she's 91 years old and it never happened, but she's so happy that it's happening now.

And this is the time for it to happen. But I love the fact that she wasn't trying to get her plays to Broadway. She was just trying to write truth and to impact lives and to know that I'm a part of that now, that the rest of the world really gets to know her and meet her through her writings. And for years and years from now, more people will know about her and know about her beautiful work. She's written some great plays, Funny House of the Negro, The Owl Answers. But I am excited to do the work. And it's like the work that Broadway has been trying to do in the community to try to, and we got a long way to go. I mean, white, black, the industry, we got a long way to go, just like we got a long way to go in America.

So the fact that we're telling more stories, a wider variety of stories, I think that's important. And I think we got to keep doing it. It's like the next Adrienne Kennedy should be able to get her play on Broadway when she's 15, if the work is of quality work. So I'm excited to do that. And I'm excited to be the first play in James Earl Jones's theater. But the plays, and then when Ohio State Murders is up and running at the same time Top Dog is running, all these plays will talk to each other. You know what I mean? It's like, you can see Top Dog on 45th and then go to 48th and see Ohio State Murders, and then go see The Piano Lesson on 47th, and then go see Death of a Salesman on 44th, is it? And then you can go and see Stopper's work on, you know, just see all of it, see all of the stories. So that's what I'm most excited about.

[30:29] Gordon Cox: Yeah. For both of you, as we are coming out of the lockdown and, you know, having been through all we've been through since the pandemic hit, do you think differently about the kinds of projects that you are initiating or gravitating toward? What's your, what's your, what guides you now, um, as opposed to maybe how you were thinking about your work and your career, uh, previous to that? Susan Laurie, let's start with you.

[31:06] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, thanks. First, just to tack on something about Adrienne Kennedy. I mean, for me, she has always been an inspiration, a lighthouse, a brilliant, amazing soul sister who has made a way, uh, when, when there was no way, or it looked like there was no way, you know what I'm saying? Um, and she's also a lot of fun to hang out with, um, as I've hung out with her. So I just want to, you know, send some love her way also. Um, but so coming out of COVID, what do you, is that what you, that was a question, right, Matt? Yeah. What, how do you think about the shows you're making and what the shows you want to make going forward?

[31:43] Suzan-Lori Parks: Yeah, that's a great question. Coming out of COVID and coming off of working on, you know, some TV and film stuff, Genius Aretha, United States vs. Billie Holiday. Right. It's, it's, it's, I am not, no longer afraid to be my authentic self. And, you know, that means a whole host of things, but yeah, I'm just going to stand around and say people like, yeah, I'm a servant. I serve the, I serve the higher purpose. I, uh, am going to continue to do my best work. I was never a slacker, you know, um, uh, I am going to be loving and generous to my collaborators. I'm going to, uh, through everything I do, you know, invite people to have a seat at the table. Uh, it's, it's just so important that I continue to show up and continue to take risks.

I mean, plays for the play gear, I'm going to be on stage with 23 songs I wrote, singing my songs and doing these plays. That's just like, what? Uh, but you know, there I'm going to be while, so while Top Dog is running yet on Broadway, this beautiful production that we got, I'm going to be doing this little crazy thing down at Joe's pub. So it's just real important to, uh, be present and, and sing the song, capital S song.

[33:24] Gordon Cox: Yeah. What about for you, Kenny?

[33:28] Kenny Leon: Well, I think for me, not to sound any, any way, it's like, I think that a lot of people, including a lot of people who are not here anymore, like the great Charles Fuller just passed on and August Wilson and Ruby Dee and Isaac Davis. And I think a lot of people, Douglas Turner Ward, a lot of people have been doing the work for a long time. And I feel like the world is catching up with those ideas, you know? So I I'm doing, we've been doing these plays for 20 or 30 years. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, uh, when George Floyd passed away, uh, uh, Leo Volick, a producer said, Kenny, I want to do the right thing. What do you, what do you really want to do? What are you dying to do that you haven't done?

And I said, I want to do Melvin Van Peebles ain't supposed to die a natural death, but nobody's going to produce that. And she says, I'll produce it. I'll get the 15 million. So, you know, we're going to end up doing that, you know, um, you know, the plays we're doing now, plays that I've always wanted to do. So I'm not going to, I'm not thinking differently, maybe. And like, for instance, no one ever thinks about me for plays like Our Town, but now when I made it known, like, no, no, no, there's a way to do Our Town in a way that includes everybody. And I want to do that production. So I am going to do Our Town next year. But the other stuff, you know, so I want to do Our Town and I grew up in the South and, and I taught, you know, the poetry of Tennessee Williams for a while.

And it's like one while in the past, they were like five or six Tennessee Williams plays, like in an 18 month span. And I didn't get one interview. And I was like, can I at least get an interview? Because there's so many things that define me, you know, and, you know, the South and poetry and, you know, so, so I think now maybe I get invited to more of those rooms. I want to also help build a better industry. I want to do my part to help, help younger folks get in a position to tell their stories. I want to help my white brothers do a better job in some of their positions on Broadway. I want to, you know, I want to diversify. I want to do all that stuff. But in terms of how I look at the work, the stories that, that speak to me are still the same stories that speak to me. Stories that uplift civilization, stories that bring us closer together, stories that, as corny as it sounds, that speaks on love.

[36:05] Gordon Cox: Well, we can't wait to see everything you both have coming up, including Top Dog/Underdog, which opens pretty soon. So thank you both for taking the time to chat with me. It was great to talk and we look forward to seeing the show. That was writer Suzan-Lori Parks and director Kenny Leon, whose production of Top Dog/Underdog is now on Broadway. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of StageCraft, I'd really appreciate it if you took the time to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps us grow our audience of folks who love theater as much as you and I do. Or tell a friend about StageCraft, or give us a shout out on social media. Find past episodes and subscribe at all the pod purveyors, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on the Broadway Podcast Network, which is a great place to find more theater for your ears. Until next episode, find me on Twitter at gcoxvariety. Thanks for listening, and see you at the theater.